Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
"The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light."
The Eye of the World is the first novel in The Wheel of Time, a fantasy series by Robert Jordan.
Now, you might be asking why I am writing for a book I have already read and reviewed before. Well, that is because I barely remember reading it. That is also because I decided to listen to the audiobook rather than physically so that I could listen while simultaneously playing a video game. I knew that would be a bad idea because I don't retain fantasy well through audio, only fiction or horror/mystery.
Still, though, my rating did manage to stay the same, which I consider a success since I tend not to like books as much the second time around. Let's get into some details.
PLOT + WRITING + CHARACTERS
Without a doubt this was well-written, seeing as Robert Jordan is considered to be one of the best fantasy authors. It always amazes me that authors can make a group of people travelling for hundreds of pages interesting. The pacing, while some may consider it slow again due to the amount of travelling, was done well because there was enough action and higher-octane moments spread out in between. The pacing can also be shown when in comparison to the TV show, which sped up a lot of aspects of the series that don't even occur in the first book.
The story is not without negative though (at least to me). In terms of writing, some of the phrases sounded a bit odd in my head. Any phrase that included the word light just didn't flow very well to me and it was a bit awkward to read it out. The only other thing I didn't really like was some of the characters. I think it is a well-known thing that the female characters, at least in the beginning, weren't great. I was fine with Morraine and Nynaeve (to some extent), but Egwene was straight-up annoying.
As for the male characters, you can really tell that they were born and raised in a small village. They all, Egwene included, thought of this journey as this grand adventure, and just ignored the danger they were in for a while. Rand in particular had some epic moments of ignorance that made me want to smash my head into a wall.
WORLD-BUILDING
I made a separate section for world-building because I consider it to be one of the more crucial aspects of a fantasy story. I rather liked several elements of this world, from the importance of hair to the fact that only women can channel. Admittedly, it took a while for me to understand what the wheel of time even was because it wasn't explicitly stated. A small detail I liked was that the maps were spread out rather than having just a big one at the beginning. Whenever they entered a new area there would be a map for it.
One element I didn't like, although it was still well-written, was the whitecloaks. Anything that resembles Christianity and persecution gets a nope from me.
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